A preliminary report of improved vision under hypnosis

Davison, Gerald C.; Singleton, Lawrence

doi:10.1080/00207146708407509

Cited by 6 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…These claims were apparently in line with other reports that hypnotic age regression, to a time before the subject required corrective lenses, improved both myopia and hyperopia (Erickson, 1943;LeCron, 1952); accounts advising that hypnosis was capable of improving visual acuity without changing the refractive power of the eye (Copeland, 1967a(Copeland, , 1967bDavison & Singleton, 1967); reports of spontaneous improvement in visual acuity while testing subjects on unrelated tasks (Kline, 1952(Kline, /1953Weitzenhoffer, 1951); and data from a tangential assay reporting transient improvement of visual acuity in nine cases of another visual disturbance (Browning & Crasilneck, 1957). Graham and Leibowitz (1972) proposed that their findings together with these background data collectively supported the claim that improvement of binocular visual acuity in highly suggestible myopes could take place rapidly as a function of hypnotic as well as nonhypnotic suggestion and that the improvement did not involve a change in the refractive power of the eye.…”

Section: A Seminal Report and Its Consequencessupporting

confidence: 76%

“…Graham and Leibowitz (1972) anchor the claim that hypnotic suggestion can improve visual acuity around largely anecdotal findings. Not only does some of their substantiation rely on preliminary case studies (Browning & Crasilneck, 1957;Davison & Singleton, 1967), some of these data actually present scenarios devoid of suggestion (Copeland, 1967a(Copeland, , 1967bDavison & Singleton;Kline, 1952Kline, /1953. Additionally, the authors cite data from unrelated domains (Weitzenhoffer, 1951), an unpublished case report using the wife of one of the authors as subject (LeCron, 1952), and a short, reference-free report based on an unpublished five-page thesis (Copeland, 1967b) where the number of subjects is unclear (once reported as 8 and once as 170 AMIR RAZ ET AL.…”

Section: Psychological Approaches To Myopiamentioning

confidence: 98%

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See Clearly: Suggestion, Hypnosis, Attention, and Visual Acuity

Raz

Marinoff²,

Zephrani³

et al. 2004

International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis

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Some reports claim that positive suggestion (e.g., using hypnosis) can significantly improve visual acuity (e.g., in myopes). Based on behavioral, neurocognitive, and ophthalmological findings, the authors provide a critical account to review and challenge some of these data. While acknowledging the relative merits of hypnosis for investigating visual phenomena, an array of arguments converges to propose caveats to the apparent influence suggestion can exert on visual acuity. The authors argue that neither suggestion nor hypnotic phenomena are likely to significantly improve myopic vision and contend that a responsible scientific attitude should carefully outline what hypnosis and suggestion cannot do in addition to what they can. It seems likely that the small apparent influence of suggestion on visual acuity is mediated by changes in attention. The authors outline how attention can affect visual acuity.

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Section: A Seminal Report and Its Consequencessupporting

confidence: 76%

Section: Psychological Approaches To Myopiamentioning

confidence: 98%

See Clearly: Suggestion, Hypnosis, Attention, and Visual Acuity

Raz

Marinoff²,

Zephrani³

et al. 2004

International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The term "hypnotic suggestion" denotes here all types of verbal recommendations addressed by a hypnotist to someone else about what this person might perceive, feel, think, memorize, or do while hypnotized. For example, well hypnotized individuals commonly report significant changes of the gestalt of objects [1][2][3], modulations of colour [4][5][6], hue [4] and other physical properties of visual stimuli [7]. Further studies have reported deafness or modulated loudness [8], and changes of the smell of olfactory stimuli [9].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Suggested visual blockade during hypnosis: Top-down modulation of stimulus processing in a visual oddball task

et al. 2021

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Several theories of hypnosis assume that responses to hypnotic suggestions are implemented through top-down modulations via a frontoparietal network that is involved in monitoring and cognitive control. The current study addressed this issue re-analyzing previously published event-related-potentials (ERP) (N1, P2, and P3b amplitudes) and combined it with source reconstruction and connectivity analysis methods. ERP data were obtained from participants engaged in a visual oddball paradigm composed of target, standard, and distractor stimuli during a hypnosis (HYP) and a control (CON) condition. In both conditions, participants were asked to count the rare targets presented on a video screen. During HYP participants received suggestions that a wooden board in front of their eyes would obstruct their view of the screen. The results showed that participants’ counting accuracy was significantly impaired during HYP compared to CON. ERP components in the N1 and P2 window revealed no amplitude differences between CON and HYP at sensor-level. In contrast, P3b amplitudes in response to target stimuli were significantly reduced during HYP compared to CON. Source analysis of the P3b amplitudes in response to targets indicated that HYP was associated with reduced source activities in occipital and parietal brain areas related to stimulus categorization and attention. We further explored how these brain sources interacted by computing time-frequency effective connectivity between electrodes that best represented frontal, parietal, and occipital sources. This analysis revealed reduced directed information flow from parietal attentional to frontal executive sources during processing of target stimuli. These results provide preliminary evidence that hypnotic suggestions of a visual blockade are associated with a disruption of the coupling within the frontoparietal network implicated in top-down control.

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The effect of suggestion on visual acuity

Graham

Leibowitz

1972

International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis

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A preliminary report of improved vision under hypnosis

Cited by 6 publications

References 0 publications

See Clearly: Suggestion, Hypnosis, Attention, and Visual Acuity

See Clearly: Suggestion, Hypnosis, Attention, and Visual Acuity

Suggested visual blockade during hypnosis: Top-down modulation of stimulus processing in a visual oddball task

The effect of suggestion on visual acuity

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